


A Complicated History of Jason Grace's life

by orphan_account



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Grace never knew his mother. But he managed to track her down. Now he has to deal with what comes before and after meeting the woman who gave him up to a goddess at three years old. With his best friend by his side, he needs to cope. But can he? Set pre HOO.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Complicated History of Jason Grace's life

**Author's Note:**

> Just gonna put a quick trigger warning here. I'm rating it T because it's not explicit, but there is a reference to rape further down, that if you find triggering, please skip over or don't read the story. It's in the first part that is italicised.

In the whole time she had known him, she had never seen him so restless. Reyna didn't exactly know what was causing him to lose focus so much today, but he just couldn't keep still for one minute, and it was really getting on her nerves. But he was being unusually quiet, which also unnevered her. It wasn't normal for him not to be talking. Jumping around was normal for him. Not speaking was not. He could barely stay focused enough to win a fight against Dakota. That's when she had had enough and snapped at him for not paying enough attention. He snapped back of course, but he still didn't tell her what was on his mind, and it was driving her crazy.

Sitting down next to him during their break, she noticed him staring off into the distance, so she nudged him.

"What's with you today, Jason?" She whispered, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Nothing." He couldn't even look at her, and she knew he was lying to her.

"Jason, I know you better than that. Are you gonna tell me what's up or am I gonna have to pin you down and get it out of you another way?" He sighed. He'd give in if she fought it out of him and they both kew it.

"Fine." He leaned down and picked up his backpack, rifling through it. She quirked an eyebrow as he did this, wondering where he was going with this mysterious bag.

"I found my mom." He said, pulling out a brown envelope. "She's in LA."

"You found her?" She asked, smiling. She knew what it meant to him that she had left him when he was so young, so finding her had been important to him for a very long time.

"Yeah. I'm gonna go meet her at the weekend." He was turning the envelope in his hands and she figured that he was nervous.

"Do you want me to come with you? I know how hard this must be for you…"

"Would you really?" He looked at her with curiosity in his eyes and she smiled again.

"Of course I would. This is HUGE, Jason. You're gonna need someone with you." He grinned.

"You don't trust me going to LA on my own?" He nudged her with his shoulder, trying not to laugh.

"It's a big city, airhead. You might get lost." She nudged him back, biting her lip as she grinned.

"You wound me with your doubt, Reyna." He handed her the envelope. "Open it." He prompted, tapping her leg with his fingers nervously. She swatted his hand away and slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. It mostly consisted of photos and magazine articles detailing the life of a woman Jason had never known. She was beautiful, and she could see where Jason got his good looks. Blonde and busty, she was what she imagined Jupiter's type to be. The articles depicted the life of a very lonely woman whose fame had caused her to spiral out of control, after her two kids mysteriously disappeared. Jason had told her about his sister, but he didn't know much about her. The articles didn't give much away either, but she was happy that he was going to finally get some of the answers he'd been waiting for since he had arrived.

Putting her arms around him, she impulsively hugged him, something she didn't usually do, but in this situation, she was willing to make an exception. She was so ridiculously happy for him, and she didn't even know why.

* * *

On the Friday night after their training had finished, they both met at the camp's border, ready to drive down to Los Angeles. In the past few days they'd prepared. Well, Reyna had prepared. Jason was almost too excited to stay still. Reyna booked them a motel room for the Friday night, she'd given him a list of what to pack and she'd even helped him pack, just to make sure that he hadn't forgotten anything. But she'd also prepared herself. What if this didn't go the way Jason wanted it to? She could see it in his eyes when she tried to talk to him about it. He had his own doubts about the woman who had given birth to him and then given him away when he was too young to even come to camp in the first place. This woman was the reason that Jason had grown up without a loving family. And Reyna wasn't sure how Jason would take it if she rejected him again.

So she prepared, not only for the best, but also for the worst. And that brought her to the moment she was living now. The awkward silence they walked in as they went to retrieve the car from the camp's garage was stifling, and she knew he wasn't his usual chatty self because he was nervous. So she did something that took all of her courage. She slipped her hand into his, squeezing gently, letting him know that she was there for him. That she wasn't running away. That he could trust her, just like she had grown to trust him. He shot her a small smile and she smiled back.

"By the way, I don't trust you to drive right now." He shot her those big puppy dog eyes that he always did to get what he wanted. Luckily, she had always been immune to this look and she settled on a stern expression.

"With how you've been acting the last few days, did you really expect me to?"

"I'm good at driving!" He protested, but she stood her ground.

"You've been so jumpy all week, there is no way you can handle driving for five hours."

"Let's just split it and do half each, Reyna." She could sense him rolling his eyes next to her and she tried not to let on a smile.

"How do I know that you won't kill us both because you're distracted?"

"Who said I was distracted?" He shot back, raising an eyebrow.

"Please, Jason. You've been distracted since you got that envelope." She slipped the keys out of his pocket without him noticing

"Have you been watching me all week?" He gasped, trying to look scandalised. "I never knew you had a perverted side!" She whacked him on the arm for that.

"I am not a pervert!"

"Even in the baths? Gods, Reyna. I think you have a real problem." She hit him again and he rubbed his arm. "Hey!"

She dangled the keys in front of his face.

"I'm on first shift." He made a grab for them and she darted ahead. He shouted her name, chasing after her. He caught up to her as she was putting the key into the lock of the car, turning her around and pinning her to the side of the vehicle. They were both panting, and it took her a few moments to realise how close they were actually stood, looking at each other. Glancing down at his lips she let her mind wander to think about what it would be like to kiss him before shaking her head, trying to rid herself of those thoughts. Where on earth had that even come from?

She put her hand on his arm and carefully pushed them away.

"Come on, we've got to get going or we're not gonna get there." He nodded and stepped back, starting to move around the car.

"I suppose I can deal with being a passenger for half the journey." Jason said, smiling at her. She caught herself smiling back and shook her head, trying to rid herself of such airheaded thoughts, before opening the driver's door and sliding into the seat.

* * *

The five hour drive it took them to get to LA wasn't as uncomfortable as she had thought it would be. Jason sung to her, and made her sing back to him, which was definitely an interesting experience. He also got her to play driving games with him, which was something she hadn't done in a very long time. And now she was musing what the next day would be like as he slept on the bed next to hers. How would he take it? How would she take it? She reasoned that they would have to just take it as it comes. It would be impossible for something to happen that they weren't prepared for. So she put her head down and tried to sleep.

* * *

_Her hands were bound quickly as she was thrown into a room. She was blind folded, but she could still hear Circe's screams as the pirates overcame the spa. Circe had tried to curse them, but realising that she wouldn't be able to get them all, she had disappeared. Circe was kind to her and her sister, but she was still a goddess, and there was only so much she could do to interfere before she had to force herself away. Blood trickled down the side of Reyna's face and dropped off of her nose onto the damp wooden floor that she had been shoved down onto. She didn't know where she was, but she knew they hadn't taken her off of the island. That boy and girl had taken the pirate ship that had sat in the bay for longer than she could remember. They were probably halfway around the world by now, she thought bitterly as she felt more girls thrown to the floor around her. But she got to stay here. She dreaded to think about what they were going to do to her. Then, she was grabbed by her hair. She could hear her sister screaming her name and she kicked out, trying to escape. But it was fruitless. Another man grabbed her legs and held her still._

" _She's 11 years old, leave her alone!" Her sister was screaming. Reyna could feel herself be taken out of the room along with her sister into another room, where her blindfold was finally taken off. The room was in the basement of the spa, something barely used due to Circe's preference to live close to the sea so that she could see the son she shared with Poseidon. Reyna had found this ironic, that Circe's children had all been male, despite her general hatred for them. However, Circe loved her children deeply, even if she refused to talk about the parentage of the three boys she would occasionally raise from the dead to talk to. Odysseus was a sore topic on the island and bringing him up was not a good idea for anybody if they wanted to remain in their own bodies for the rest of the month. But Circe nor her children were here now. And she barely had time to register the pirates who were pawing at her clothes. That was when she screamed. She had held it together during the seize of the island, but she had never thought that they would take it this far. She was only a child, but they had bound her to a bed they had somehow dragged into the small room, her sister being held in the doorway of the room. That was when she saw him. The face of the man who still haunted her nightmares to this day. Blackbeard, they told her he was called afterwards. But she didn't need his name. She just remembered wanting him dead. And she did get her revenge, but when he was writing around on top of her, it had taken all of her strength to remain emotionless. She refused to scream or struggle. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he caused her such terror._

_But slitting his throat as they escaped was the best revenge anybody could ask for._

"Reyna! Reyna, wake up!" Jason was shaking her awake, and she barely registered that she was screaming, bashing her fists against his chest, and desperately trying to get his hands off of her. Tears were running down her cheeks, but all she cared about was getting his hands off of her. She didn't want to be touched. She didn't want him near her. She didn't want to trust any man after what the pirates had done to her, but somehow Jason had managed to break down that barrier and get under her skin. Slowly, her sobs subsided, but she was still shaking. And he was still touching her. Didn't he understand that she didn't want him to?

"Reyna, please talk to me." She looked up at him and worry was etched into his features.

"Don't touch me." He retracted his hands quickly, knowing what she had been through.

"I'm sorry. You were screaming and I was trying to wake you up…" He trailed off, looking down. She wiped her face.

"…It's okay." She whispered hoarsely.

"Nightmares suck, huh?" He asked, trying to make her smile, but all she could do was nod. He motioned for her to move up on the bed and she did, letting him perch next to her.

"You've got to at least give me a hug now for making sure you were okay." He said, tucking her back into the bed. She hesitated, but she slowly put her arms around him, relaxing into his firm body. He was well defined from his years of training, not to mention that he was getting pretty tall. He was nothing like the hairy, disgusting pirates and for that she was thankful. He was like sunshine, always radiating happiness and warmth, along with a commanding energy that must've only come from being the son of the king of the gods. He relaxed next to her and she lifted the covers to let him get into bed properly. She didn't even need to tell him what she wanted, he just automatically knew. As he wrapped his arms around her, she placed her head on his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart, tracing his body with her fingers. She heard him chuckle softly from underneath her.

"`Not there, that tickles." He said, bringing his hand up to stroke her back. She exhaled, not even realising that she had been holding her breath. She hadn't had a nightmare so vivid in a long time, but she was glad that Jason was here with her. He didn't even have to say anything. Doing this was enough. Eventually his breathing became deeper, and she knew that he had fallen asleep already. Leaning up slightly, she watched him sleep for a few moments. She hadn't even noticed that he was shirtless when he had climbed into her bed, and she studied his features as he dreamt. He looked so… Innocent. It was strange seeing him in this kind of position, and she wasn't going to take it for granted. He was all business when it came to the legion, but when it came to his personal life, she wondered if he'd ever experienced love. After all, it didn't seem like he had much love in his childhood, so maybe he hadn't experienced it yet.

Love.

Love was definitely a strange concept. The idea of sharing yourself so wholly with another person terrified her, but she figured it was like that for most people. Had she fallen in love without realising it?

Brushing her fingers over his cheek, she tilted her head and looked at him. Maybe love wasn't so bad if it meant moments like this.

* * *

Reyna woke up first, her head back on Jason's chest, still listening to his heartbeat. Eventually she untangled herself from his body, moving up so she could see his face. He was blinking slowly, obviously groggy as he was waking up. She tried not to smile at the slightly confused look on his face, but she couldn't help herself.

"What time is it?" He asked, running a hand though his hair. She glanced at the clock and sighed.

"Eight. You were planning on going to your house at ten, right?" She said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. She didn't know the protocol here. Was she supposed to talk to him about the whole sleeping in the same bed thing or were they going to pretend it had never happened?

He rolled onto his side and groaned.

"I can sleep for a bit longer, more sleep is good." Pulling the covers up, he began getting comfortable. At this she rolled her eyes and pushed him out of the bed.

Looking up at her from the floor, he looked so sad.

"Why would you do that?" He asked, almost pouting.

"Because you need a shower." She screwed up her face. "You stink."

"I do not!" He protested.

"You totally do." He really did pout at this and she laughed at how ridiculous he looked. "Come on Jason, don't you wanna smell good for your mom?"

"Yeah, yeah." He said, getting up from the floor. "Or are you just making me take a shower so I can give you a show?" She quirked her eyebrow and he started dancing, hooking his fingers in the band of his pyjama pants.

"Jason don't do that!" She shouted, putting her hands over her eyes. She could hear him laughing.

"Don't worry Reyna, you totally would not be able to handle that." She could feel her face heating up. Did she actually want to see him like that? And he definitely wasn't uncomfortable with his own body, as he had proved time and time again at camp. And she knew that he had been experiencing… things with their fellow campers, which was why she never volunteered to go and search for him when he couldn't be found, especially after the time she had caught him in a "passionate embrace" with one of the daughters of Bacchus. He had made her swear not to tell Dakota, and to that day she hadn't told anybody about his growing… reputation with certain campers.

But the question was, did she imagine herself as that girl she had caught him with? Could she imagine that?

She shook her head. She was having such impossible thoughts and letting her mind get carried away. This was Jason Grace after all.

* * *

After they had showered and packed up their things, she had finally coerced him into letting her drive again. She could tell the closer it got to ten o clock, the more nervous and shaky he was getting. He could barely keep still on the journey there, bouncing his leg, tapping his fingers, and basically annoying the crap out of her while she tried to navigate the unfamiliar streets. Somehow they managed to pull up outside a large, gated house, which Reyna could only assume was the right place from the pictures in the envelope that Jason had shown her.

She glanced over at him and he was taking deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves.

"You ready?" She asked carefully, putting her hand on his.

"I guess I'm gonna have to be." She leaned over and opened the door for him, trying to prompt him to get out of the car. His face was grim, and he was obviously thinking that what he was about to do was going to go wrong.

"What's with the face?" She asked, trying to nudge him out of his seat.

"What if… What if she hates me?" Reyna was taken aback. She understood what he was feeling. That the fact a person had given birth to you doesn't always make them love you. She knew that from experience. She had never met her mother, and had few memories of her father, but all the memories she did have were wonderful. Jason didn't have that. He was too young to remember.

"She's not going to hate you, Jason. You don't know why she gave you up." He swallowed. "It'll be fine. I promise."

"You're right. I don't have anything to worry about." She gave her a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"So get out the car." He sighed and finally got out.

She hesitated for a few moments, giving him some time to get himself together before she would force him to do this.

Hopping over the fence was probably the easiest part of the entire day. The walk up to the house itself was short, but she could see Jason panicking with every step he took closer to the building he had spent the first three years of his life in. She took his hand again for a moment, trying to say without words that she was right there beside him, and that she wasn't going to run off to let him deal with this on his own, but she wasn't sure of how much of that message he was understanding with his current state of mind.

Knocking on the door, Jason swallowed, glancing at Reyna who nodded in encouragement. He looked back at the door as it opened, revealing a woman.

She looked older than she did in the pictures, but her beauty still shone through. There was no doubt that this woman was stunning, but Reyna could see the tired, weary look in her eyes of a woman who must deeply regret the decisions that she had made in her life. Her brow was furrowed as she took in the two teenagers in front of her, but when she looked Jason in the eyes, she put two and two together. Her expression changed, and suddenly, she looked absolutely horrified. She knew who was stood in front of her.

"Mom?" Jason asked, hesitantly, like word sounded foreign on his tongue.

"J-Jason?" The woman asked, not even paying attention to Reyna, which was fine with her. She didn't want to intrude.

Then they were speechless, just staring at each other, taking each other in. It had been over a decade since they had seen one another, and Reyna assumed that Jason's memory of his mother was foggy at best. Ms Grace looked over at Reyna and extended her hand.

"I'm Evelyn, and I know you're not my oldest. You are?" Reyna tentatively took her hand and shook it.

"Reyna. I'm Jason's best friend." Evelyn nodded and turned her attention back to her son, taking his face in her hands to inspect him.

"I thought I'd never see you again." She whispered before hugging him properly. Jason looked incredibly uncomfortable with this, but eventually gave in and hugged her back.

Evelyn ushered them into the house. Reyna chewed her bottom lip as they waited for Evelyn to come back with coffee. Jason was watching the door she had disappeared through. Reyna couldn't tell what was going through his mind, but she assumed that it was a lot, so she decided not to bother him. Instead, she stared at her hands and left them in an almost uncomfortable silence.

When Evelyn returned, she had a tray with three cups of coffee, but something did not seem right. There was a strange smell coming from one of the cups, and Reyna didn't need to think too hard about what could be in Evelyn's cup.

"Isn't it a little early to be drinking?" Jason asked carefully, but Evelyn ignored his question, choosing instead to tidy the room around them.

"Mom?" Jason asked, and her she stopped moving around the room, her head jerking towards him. She obviously wasn't used to being called that.

"Yes, Jason?" She plastered on a smile, but it looked exactly like the fake ones that Reyna had seen Jason do a million times when he was feeling sad.

"Can you sit down so we can talk?" Evelyn glanced at Reyna.

"Perhaps we should do it in private." She said and Reyna blinked. What was this woman hiding that she couldn't tell her son's best friend?

But against her better judgement; she stood, excusing herself to go sit in the car.

* * *

It took ten minutes for Jason to leave after she did. He was fuming and electricity was sparking off of his hair. He had shrugged her off when she had asked him what was wrong, and she let him. It wasn't her place to pry in something like this, and she wasn't about to force him to tell her. So she drove. In the five hour journey back to Camp Jupiter, he didn't speak a word. It was nothing like the trip the previous day- had they really only spent a day away from camp? – And she let him take his time in telling her. He would come around and tell her what happened eventually, he just needed time to process what he just went through, she thought to herself as they pulled into the garage.

* * *

Jason hadn't said much to anyone in the few days since their trip. But when he didn't show up for training one morning, Reyna decided that it was time to pry. She'd had enough of beating around the bush and her curiosity was killing her. She needed to know what had gone so wrong in that ten minutes to make him so angry on the journey home.

But she wasn't expecting anything like the truth.

Because the truth was, Jason had left the address of camp in her house if she needed to contact him. And that when she had cooled down the previous day, she had decided to make the journey to San Francisco to make things right with her now only child. Evelyn had explained that Thalia had took off and that she had never heard or seen her again. Evelyn told him that in her heart she knew that her daughter was alive and out there somewhere, but that they would never be reunited because of her decision to give Jason up to Juno. She explained that her drinking had caused her to be abusive to Thalia before Jason was born, but that she couldn't stop herself. And that even to that day, she still had trouble with substance abuse. That she was glad that Jason had come to find her, because she had lost two of the most important things in the world to her, that she didn't realise was important until they were both gone.

And that she was barely out of Los Angeles when some kind of animal jumped in front of her car and caused her to swerve off of the road, killing her almost instantly.

When Reyna found Jason that day, all he had to do was hold out the newspaper article detailing her death. No explanation needed.

And so they sat there. She held him the best she could while he cried for the loss of the mother that he had never known. Of a mother that he would never know. The fates were cruel beings, and they were punishing both Jason and Evelyn for unknown reasons. Jason didn't deserve to have his mother ripped away from him when he had only just found her again, no matter how angry he had been when he had left her.

And that was the worst part, he told her. That the last thing he had ever said to his mother was that he never wanted to see her again, and that he wished that she were dead. He hadn't meant those things. Not in the slightest. He was just angry that he would never know his sister because of her.

But still Reyna stroked his hair and lay with him in bed for the day. He needed her to be strong for him, and she would be act as his rock, to anchor him to the real world when the time came for him to be strong once again. He wouldn't be able to spend more than this day that they had mourning his mother's death, and they both knew that.

She also had to admit that she was glad that Dakota walked in on the kiss that her and Jason had shared when his day was almost up. She didn't want him to associate her with grief. If he was going to kiss her, she wanted him to do it properly, not just because he was hurting.

_And he would do it, and he would mean it. But that's a story for another day._

* * *

_Percy couldn't sleep. It was unsettling for him to be sleeping in a strange bed that he knew didn't belong to him. In fact, nothing in this villa belonged to him. He felt more out of place than ever, and that was saying something. Reyna's light had gone off hours ago, and he assumed the entire camp was asleep except for him._

_So he was now in the position where it was the middle of the night and his body was telling him that he needed the bathroom, so he supposed he would have to try and remember where it was._

_And the room he was in was definitely not the bathroom. He didn't even know that this villa HAD a spare room, but now he felt like exploring. Hey, this was now his villa, right?_

_It didn't take long for him to unearth a box marked "Family stuff", so he figured that he would have a small look. He wanted to know more about this Jason that everybody talked about. All he knew was that he was related to Thalia. So he wasn't expecting much when he lifted the lid of the box._

_There were papers and newspaper clippings and articles, along with pictures and a set of house keys. Percy picked up something that looked pretty official and squinted, trying to make out what it said._

" _I, Evelyn Grace, leave all of my earthly belongings to my children…". The paper, he realised was a will. Thalia had said her mom had died, but Percy guessed she hadn't looked further into it than a quick google search. Looking through the box, he realised that Jason had actually been at his mother's will reading, along with her funeral. There were college funds set up for Jason and Thalia and a savings account with quite a lot of money in it. A lot more money than he had expected, knowing what Thalia had told him. But the more he looked, the more he pieced together about Jason's life. Jason had come to camp when he was three. He hadn't known his mother, and from looking at the receipt for a motel and a note with a date of a few days before Evelyn Grace died, Jason had met her. Percy immediately felt sorry for him, but decided to keep what he now knew about his cousins to himself. He would put the box away and pretend that he had never seen the contents. It wasn't his place to snoop after all._

_He wanted to phone his mom again, to talk to her properly, to tell her that he loved her, but he decided against it. She knew that he loved her. She knew that he was… Relatively safe. And it made him happy to think that he would see her again soon. So he held onto that thought._


End file.
